As usual, I studied various recipes and I created a composite that produces a delicious hot Italian sausage. But here is where personal preferences become very important. Different folks want different degrees of hot. What I show below in the ingredient list creates an extremely hot sausage suitable only for those who truly love hot stuff. After the directions I discuss how to vary the ingredients to have anything from mildly hot to fairly hot, so that you can decide what you want.

The meat to use is a boneless, skinless pork shoulder, which is sometimes labeled as a Boston Butt roast. The point is that a skin and fat trimmed, deboned pork shoulder, will usually have a near perfect ratio of meat to fat, around 20% fat.

I made this sausage multiple times and it is excellent. Try it and you will agree.

Ingredients:

• 5 pounds of boned, skinless pork shoulder, about 80% lean
• 2 teaspoons of fennel seed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of coriander seeds
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of caraway seeds
• 2 tbsp. of red pepper flakes (see variations following directions)
• 2 tablespoons of kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon of coarsely ground black pepper (or crushed fresh peppercorns)
• 1 tbsp. of dried oregano
• 1 cup of ice water
• 2 tsp. of Cayenne pepper (optional, see variations following directions)

Directions:

Trim the pork of any thick external fat and cut the meat into 1 inch cubes, including the internal fat, and add the salt and mix by hand. Then put the salted meat into a bowl, cover the surface of the meat with plastic wrap, and refrigerate it overnight.

The next morning, grind the salted pork through the coarse (1/4" diameter holes) plate of your meat grinder. After the meat is ground, use your electric mixer with the paddle attachment to blend the ground pork and ground fat for about three minutes on medium speed to blend the meat with the fat.

Put all the dry herbs/spices into a Magic Bullet® mixer and mix them for two minutes. Add them into a two cup bowl with the cup of ice water and mix with a spoon for about 30 seconds.

Pour the herb, spice and water combination into the ground pork and fat mixture gradually while mixing and mix thoroughly for at least 3 minutes. I use the paddle attachment of my electric mixer and run it on medium speed for about three minutes to blend the spices into the ground pork.

Once the sausage is fully mixed, I suggest you test fry a small, 1/4" thick patty of the sausage in a small amount of canola oil to test the seasoning. Fry for about three minutes per side on medium heat, flipping the patty over a few times during frying. Put the fried patty onto a paper towel, fold some towel over the top and press it to remove any remaining canola oil. Now cut the patty into four pieces with a fork and taste them.

If necessary, you can add more seasoning ingredients and mix them in and again test fry a small patty. Just remember to make any seasoning additions in small amounts, for you can always add more, but you can't get rid of excess seasoning once added.

You can stuff the sausage into casings or make it into patties or bulk packages about 1/2" thick. This sausage should be refrigerated as soon as it is made. It can be kept in the refrigerator for 2-3 days or vacuum sealed and kept in the freezer for up to 6 months.

This stuff is so delicious I doubt you will have much left to freeze.

Variations:

To create a mildly hot Italian sausage, eliminate the cayenne pepper and reduce the red pepper flakes from two tablespoons to one tablespoon. To create an average hot Italian sausage, simply eliminate the cayenne pepper and otherwise use the other listed ingredients. To create a somewhat hotter sausage, use one teaspoon of cayenne pepper, not two. Any amount of cayenne pepper adds a notable amount of heat, so try using a small amount first.